AT&T Credited Trump For Bonuses Negotiated By Union Employees

The $1,000 bonus was part of the contract negotiated by the Communication Workers of America union.

When AT&T announced on Wednesday that it will dole out $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 employees, both the telecom giant and President Donald Trump credited the recently-passed tax reform bill. But it seems that AT&T was a little disingenuous in acknowledging Trump as the impetus for its generosity.

AT&T was already in talks with its union to give holiday bonuses, that union told The Daily Beast. The telecom’s GOP-friendly press release makes it the latest company to praise Trump’s legislative agenda when they need a big favor from the White House.

And a big favor is just what AT&T needs right now. The Department of Justice has become a hindrance to AT&T's planned merger with Time Warner:

In November, the DOJ filed an antitrust lawsuit to block the merger. The week before the suit, Politico reported that the DOJ had threatened to block the merger if Time Warner did not sell CNN, a news network Trump frequently decries as “fake.” After AT&T’s Wednesday bonus announcement, Trump praised the telecom giant.

“This just came out… AT&T plans to increase U.S. capital spending $1 billion and provide $1,000 special bonus to more than 200,000 U.S. employees, and that’s because of what we did,” Trump said in a Wednesday press conference on the bill’s passage in Congress. “That’s pretty good. That’s pretty good.”